


Weaving

by Cephei



Category: Norse Mythology, Thor (Movies)
Genre: AU, Gen, Multi-verse, but nothing graphic, playing with Norse Mythology, reference to the wall myth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-23
Updated: 2013-01-25
Packaged: 2017-11-26 16:09:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/652072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cephei/pseuds/Cephei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So everyone knows that Loki lies, right?</p><p>But the thing is, for him everything he says is true. It's all just relative, because Loki lives in multiple realities existing at the same time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When she had first joined them he had not known what to make of her.  It puzzled him at first why he would walk by and, for a second, see a different person.  He had been sure, so sure, that the day before her hair was different.  But when he looked up at his big brother, fingers gripping on the hem of his tunic so he will not be left behind (again), Thor is unfazed and already bellowing a greeting too loud to come from his still small body.  Loki spends the rest of the day waiting for there to be a shift, a something, he doesn’t know.

No one else notices.

The next day it matches the wheat fields again, but he doesn’t want to ask Thor or Fandral because they might laugh and call him a baby as they did the last time they tried to distract him and hide in the armory where he’s not allowed to go.

Time passes and he is so very close to being a man, but not one, not ever one if he will not grow wider than a blade of grass, as Thor constantly reminds him.  He becomes accustomed to being left behind and forced into unwanted Quests in equal measures.  It does not take long for his brother’s merry band to grow, doubling in size, and Loki also becomes accustomed to leaning against the fence of the practice ring across from where Sif usually stands.  He takes to quietly watching for the rich blackness to sweep over her hair, over the lashes of her eyes.  He stops wondering, when he passes Sif or stands with her to spar or pulls her (or is pulled) to the side of the hall where they can speak without the teasing words of their friends (because he still thinks of them that way.  The truth is that he always will, only in time the word will burn), why her hair is golden when it used to be dark. It becomes such a constant that he forgets it happens until  the day she sits close and asks to see him change the flowers to butterflies.  Away from the others, with all her focus (still young and open) on him, he realizes that he rather prefers the way her eyes pierced his when they were not surrounded by delicate gold.

They were the only dark ones in Asgard; circling each other, like his father’s birds

He thinks about the way she looks lying in the field by the tree line after they fight.  The light breeze picking up strands of hair in a dance from where it is spilled like ink over the rich green of the grass.  He wonders how they look to the birds when he lies down beside her.  He wonders if they matched.  He liked it when her hair was dark, he felt less different when she was near him, less like an accident, a stain on Asgard’s golden perfection.  He thinks he told her that once and her nose wrinkled, but then she smiled, still shining like the sun as she always did, and kissed his cheek.

The next day when he greeted her and tried to hold her hand she broke his wrist

\---

Threads like spider webs.

He thinks if he followed them to the center, the birthing place, he would find a dark monster with too many legs.  He wants it to be small, like him, but it will be big enough to ride on because Loki never gets things he wants.

Mother plucks him up into her arms.

“Be careful my darling,” she holds both his hands in one of hers, the other tucked round his belly. “There are lives in those threads, we mustn’t tangle them.” Warm breath makes the hair around his ears float, like he is underwater.

His arm stretches out toward the loom, her hand following, still cradling his as if it is the most precious thing in the world.

“Wha’happens if they tangle?”

“They don’t.”

“Why?”

A kiss on his forehead.

“Because my love, if they tangle they would not be lives anymore.”

\---

Unless it is a specific something, unless he has the will to focus, the shifting is something he hardly notices.  Floor work and walls adorned with plates of gold one moment, ornate carvings of wood the next.  The ebb and flow of the golden surface as natural as the ripples in the water of the forest streams and the river he sometimes sees under the bifrost

It is not important yet for him to see the differences, but he knows that Thor smiles at him more when the floor is wood.

\---

“Once,” the story begins on the way out of the family quarters, “mankind accepted a simple truth.”

Mother stands in a doorway as they pass, alternatively looking on with watery eyes and a soft contented smile.  One of father’s heavy hands ruffles Thor’s hair, the other cradling Loki’s shoulder, pulling him closer.  He is pressed into an armored waist, resting against a strong hip that has never carried him.  The moving is difficult because the angles are awkward, but his father is holding onto him and that’s all that has ever mattered.

Father speaks of Gods and man.  Of the endless cold and darkness and the battle which is glossed over and described in heavy detail.  The blood and the death and Thor glances around their father’s torso to grin at Loki wickedly.  While they walk, Loki can feel the cold of the wall seeping into his skin, an odd comfort.  He tries to balance the sound of his own footsteps walking with those he could hear coming down the hall from where he is huddled in the corner of the vault he sleeps in when the Allfather’s guards lock the door after the food is brought in (if there is food brought in).

The heavy doors of the treasure vault push open, the space filled with light of haunting blue.  He feels as though he is toddling down the stairs and struggles to stay upright and in time with the wide strides leading him down, but he is unwilling to let go of his hold on father’s waist.  Past the shining trinkets on their pedestal, the casket glows brightly.  It is all at once frightening and familiar and home and if he can just look inside of it maybe everything will make sense.

“Do the frost giants still live?”  He watches himself reach out to touch and both his arms are hanging at his sides and father his holding his hand.

“When I’m king,” Thor gestures violently; Loki glances up at him out of the corner of his eye.  He can feel the sting of Thor’s fist on his jaw in only the vaguest sense (a feeling of might be, of not yet) and is captivated by the manic gleam in the other boy’s eyes.  “I’ll hunt the monsters down and slay them all. Just as you did father.”

The Allfather looks upon the golden prince with affection.

"A wise king never seeks out war, but he must always be ready for it.”  Father passes by them, Thor smilingfrowningglowering at Loki in his wake. Loki smiles hesitantly back, unsure which Thor can see it.  His brother runs ahead, and Loki tries to catch up so they will not have a reason to leave him in the vault.  His left hand is stiff; he rubs it against his vest.

“I’m ready father."

"So am I.”  He’s not, but he thinks he might be later.

“Only one of you can ascend to the throne, though both of you were born to be kings.”

Loki clings desperately to his father’s hand; they leave the room and there is blue fading from his fingertips.

Thor goes to find his friends when they are dismissed and leaves Loki to his own devices.  He stands in the hall and looks at his hands, thinking they might be smaller now.  As he walks he traces where he thought he saw lines, but they are gone and faded into the paleness of his skin.

It takes him ages to make his way to the bridge only because, when it’s where he needs to be, he can never find the right place.  Past the guard tower the land opens to grass and fields and Heimdall rests against one of the stone turrets, helmet setting on the ground beside them. 

Loki reaches a hand up to show him, fingers splayed wide; he’s forgotten he was worried.

“My fingers turned blue.”

“I know.”

He looks back down at his hand, skin pale and rosy pink.  When he looks back up he asks, genuinely curious. 

“Are they always blue?” 

“Not in all places.”

Loki blinks doe eyes up at him, then sits down and starts to build little towns out of sticks and dirt.

The next day he is pushed into the mud by Fandral by accident on purpose and he is left behind, helped up, pushed down again, and taken to mother with whispered apologies to get cleaned up.

He laughs it off, he cries, he hides in his rooms, he goes to see Heimdall again.

Huginn and Muninn circle overhead.

He is playing along the edges of Asgard one day, throwing pebbles as far as his little arms can to hear them plink in the water when he suddenly realizes.

“Your teeth aren’t gold.”

The guardian does not turn his head, but he smiles.

The light is fading when a servant comes to fetch him, it is the one who smells of kitchen spices and touches his forehead when he is too warm and his stomach won’t stop moving.  She is his favorite.

He wonders if she turns blue too.

And then he forgets.

\---

When the threads are cut they are placed carefully in a basket on one of the shelves that never fills up

They are not lives anymore, he is hypnotized by the basket, and he wants to play with them.  He wants to weave them like mother.

He asks.

“No.”  He is shuffled out of the room by a hand maiden.

“Must he stay here?”  One of them asks another when mother is not close enough to hear.  “Should he not be out with his brother?  He is weak enough as it is.”  He does not know their names; they are never the same long enough for it to matter.

Later he will sneak in and take some of the scraps out with him, but that night when (Thor is snoring on the other side of the room) he tries to weave them it becomes a knotted mess.

\---

It is important for him to notice things.

Loki remembers the old hammer in the vault.  Remembers going up to it when he is cold and alone behind the locked doors and touches it, traces the patterns, picks it up to admire the weight of it and feel of the handle.  He thinks it is beautiful and one time he keeps it for himself.  The hammer doesn’t exist and he wants to make it for Thor.

The dwarves are easy to manipulate.  They are bitter kind wrathful and he speaks stories that are always true in a different place.  They bring weapons (a staff, a hammer, a boat) to Asgard.  The golden hair he brings back himself, Sif does not always accept.

He gets away with it.  His lips are sewn shut by thedwarvesThorOdin.  Eitri walks out of the throne room triumphantly gripping Loki’s head by the hair.  He does nothing and is stuck in the throne room as the petitions go on for days.

Loki rubs his neck, hand coming back streaked in red.  Thor hefts his new weapon up and grins, sneers, strokes Sif’s hand in reassurance (she smacks him off and allows it), sighs restlessly by his brother’s side and whispers of adventures they will have when the petitions are finished.

As soon as he is permitted, Loki flees.  Thor waits standing on the dais to speak with father and quickly follows to match his pace, a combination of light relief and fury in his tread.  All of the footsteps are accompanied by grumbles, only most of them are directed at Loki.

“I thought they would never stop,” His brother grouches,  flexes his stiff muscles in a way that makes Loki both flinch from him and hold very very still.  “They speak  _so_  slowly.  Must be dim."

Like gravel, Loki thinks.  Like choking on gravel

After a beat of silence Thor sways closer and nudges him with a shoulder.  It is gentler than expected, but Loki still keeps his voice clipped and deferring when he speaks.

“It is their way, I believe.”  The drying blood pulls at the skin of his neck.

“The hall will reek of them now.”

“Be sure they don’t hear you say that.”

“They already have.” He shrugs carelessly and Loki heaves a sigh, coughing on the treacherous little laugh that wants to escape him because the walls are still golden and he doesn’t know.

"You are going start a war.  Again.”  He aims his voice at lofty, worries he missed but Thor makes the face he always makes when he doesn’t want to admit Loki is right and rolls his shoulders.  His neck still itches, Loki tries to ignore it. “Sooner or later, father will realize you are unsuited to be king and pass the throne to me.”  It is meant as a joke, but as soon as it leaves his mouth he knows the truth of it, is filled with giddiness until he realizes the place it is true is not here.  Thor laughs in a sharp burst of noise, grips tightly on his arm, and leads him towards the closest way outside because they suddenly have full packs and wear traveling clothes.

The floor is polished wood and he relaxes enough to breathe evenly.

“WE are going to start a war.”

“No. No, it will definitely be you.”

“And yet we haven’t.”  Thor claps his hands together once loudly, as if in celebration, and Loki snorts.  “We should present ourselves with another opportunity.  Alfheim, I think.”  Thor turns to him brightly.  “We haven’t been hunting there in ages.”

He hates going to Alfheim.  “I don’t suppose we have.  Enjoy yourself brother.”

“But you will be coming with us.” His brother’s voice carries down the corridors.  “There will be no one to amuse us with tricks if you are not there.”

Loki fights back a twitch.

“I find that hard to believe.  Fandral will be coming with you, yes?  I find myself amused every time he opens his mouth.”

His brother roars with mirth and an arm is thrown about his shoulders.  It is a burning heat, but steady, not painful.  They continue to move in the direction of the pastures where, at this time of the day, their mounts are likely feeding. “If I must.”

The arm circling him pulls him closer with an affectionate squeeze.

“You must.”

\---

One day there is not a wall. The Allfather stands looking over the fields and towns in the distance, to the rough-hewn stone bridge and the glint of light of the Guardian’s helmet where he stood watch. Loki stands by his side, eyes darting over to Odin when he speaks.

“We shall have one built.”

\---

He remembers running in panic, the heavy tread of the stallion’s hooves close behind him.  The terror made all the worse by the thought of what would happen (might happen) if he fails.

_What happens to all jotun who can’t be of use._

He tries not to think of the Allfather’s last words before he had changed and then he is trapped and can think of _nothing_.

It takes three days for him to find his way back to the palace.  All of them passing in a blur that he cannot quite remember, except that there is a hurt deep in him that he does not yet understand.  A stable hand with rough fingers (that run along his nose, sides, legs; he does not know why he is being touched) finds him by the gate and leads him, exhausted and dragging, to the pastures and stables across the grounds.

The following months are a rush of noise and silence and aloneness that culminates in a white hot agony which pierces him

His son is beautiful.  When he has the ability to do so, Loki tells him this, the horror of his creation left behind in the wake of the only thing Loki thinks he will be allowed to keep.  “You are lovely.  You are perfect.”  He pets the velvet fuzz of his baby’s ears and tries to turn so that he blocks the view of those who come to gawk.  It was easier to do, he decides, when he had been a horse.  Sleipnir whuffles and rubs his nose against the soft fabric of his mother’s tunic and all Loki can think is Love.  They nap and wake and when he blinks his eyes open he says “good morning baby” to the bright, shining eyes of the playful child in front of him.  He changes and Sleipnir begins to suckle.

They are out in the field the next morning, his little boy dancing in the grass and warm air, when he hears Thor.

“Brother, enough of this.”  It is the first time any of his family has visited him during the length of his stay in the stables.  Sensing his mother’s distress, Sleipnir dashes over to plant his four front feet between them and glare at his uncle defiantly.  Loki runs a reassuring hand over his child’s flank.  “We haven’t seen you for months and when you finally return to us, you insist on holing yourself up in the dirt with-” he trails off, an incomplete gesture moving in Sleipnir’s direction.  Loki’s blood starts to boil and Thor changes tactics.  “When was the last time you ate?”

“I ate this morning, Thor.”

“Ate REAL food, brother.  It doesn’t count if you are in the form of a beast. ”

Loki reaches down to scratch under his son’s jaw. “We had apples.”  The grinding of Thor’s teeth is audible from a distance, but when he speaks the anger and shock is surprisingly restrained.

“You are giving it what?”

“IT is my-“

“It is a horse!” He roars and leaps over the fence.  Sleipnir startles. “If we just-” Thor makes a move to lay a hand on his child and before he has a chance to consider his own actions, Loki has changed forms and Thor is lying on the ground where he landed after dodging his brother’s attempt to put her hooves through his skull.

Thor leaves.

It is the last time any of his family visited him in the stables.

Loki doesn’t go back into the palace for days until there is a direct order from the Allfather and several guards intent on physically removing him if he does not comply.

Frigga greets him outside his quarters with a hug and “my darling” and he is lured inside with promises of a warm bath.  There is a feast to celebrate his return, Loki does not go and no one except his parents notice.  It is a formality.  Asgard does not need a reason to feast; it is enough to celebrate the survival of the last.  He is kept inside, informally as punishment for his defiance, but officially it is due to the coddling of his mother who has guilted him always into doing what will make her happy.  The cool of the weaving room is as comforting as it has always been and he wonders if he will be able to provide the same comfort for his son when he has grown.

When he is finally allowed to withdraw from the palace, he stumbles into the stables to find a grown stallion and elaborate riding gear.  Sleipnir tosses his head and paws at the ground.  The Allfather had ridden Sleipnir since Loki was a child.

Loki stands in the stables, fingers tangling in the mane of his father’s mount and cries.

Heimdall is expecting him when Loki is able to drag himself away.  The heavy despair has left him drained and confused, his eyes burning, and as has given way to rage.

“Where is my CHILD?!”

“What child?”  The gatekeeper rocks with the force of impact when Loki hurls himself over the threshold, fingers clawing at the plates of his armor, streaks of red where his nails caught and ripped off. He yells, screeches, discordant insulting slurs of words. Heimdall stands still, accepts every hit and cry until the second prince has once more exhausted himself in his fit of emotion.

"Sleipnir is where he has always been, and always will be.”

Loki falls as if he has taken a hit to the chest.  Heimdall catches the sagging prince, grips an arm around him and lowers him gently to the ground, but does not stay crouched near him.  Loki collapses into incoherence, a babbling broken mess of words.  He is the opposite of himself. He buries his face in the cold surface of the elevated platform by the gate keeper’s feet.

Heimdall does not speak until Loki is able to push himself up, still curled around his own body, but at least not crumpled on the floor.

“…. He is not always your child.”

“I hate you.”

Loki looks out into the blackness past the gate of the bridge.  The seething that had built since he stepped out of the stables finally leaching away into the void and he is again left with nothing.  The surface is cold like stone under him and he uncrosses his legs to let them dangle over the edge of the bifrost.  Sometimes, when he closes his eyes, he can see water underneath his feet instead of the nothing.  He wonders what it would feel like to slip off the edge.  Was there anything in the blackness?  Would it swallow him?

Would it burn?

The gate keeper shifts and a wide, heavy hand comes to rest on the crown of his head with an unexpected softness.  Loki fights the urge to snarl and pull away.

He thinks of the shifting surfaces, and Sif’s hair (his wrist twinges), and the way his brother’s friends will sometimes welcome him with open arms, but usually with hostile confusion.

He thinks of the living ice.

"Are they real?”

“Yes.” Heimdall’s gaze never falters from the distant place he watches.

Loki sits quietly for a moment, his eyes dead, swollen red, glancing off to a far corner at nothing.

“Which one do I belong in?”

Golden eyes turn to him.  Filling him with the everything and the stars-roots-ice-panic-mychildren -Yggdrasil-kingdominruins-rainingfire-laughter-alonethundersomewherebutitsnotThortoobigforThoritburns- _Mother-_ whyisthereno _sun_

And though all his tears are spent, he is over come again by the urge to cry.

“All of them.”

\---

In the back of the archives is a niche with the outdated text no one bothers to read, no matter where Loki is.

He has cleaned out the corner, but there is a hall of dust in the surrounding isles and he can hear the snuffling and coughing out of the throat coating grime before theyanyone are anywhere near him. Only what he needs is kept here. A small table, a padded chair and a hard one. An unlit candle and a grimy window behind them that lets in the barest amount of light. A written log, hidden in neglect, that keeps track of everythingnothing.

- Muninn keeps the sleep away, but it  ~~doesn’t~~   _physically_  hurt.  _If the Allfather’s armor reflects like water Huginn will go for your eyes._

- ~~Avoid~~ _Stay with_  Thor when he wears the heavy belts with the dark buckles.  _If you don’t he will find you, and that’s worse._

-If there are  ~~dogs~~ _wolves_  carved into the doors of  ~~father’s~~   ~~the Allfather’s~~   _father’s_  study you can  ~~go in~~   _knock_ , but only if they are angry.  If they are howling do not go in.  If they are  ~~crows~~   ~~birds~~   _not eagles_  do not go in.  _Don’t go near the wing if the walls by the stairwell are embellished gold._

-Volstagg does not hurt you.

 ~~-It is safe to love Thor~~    ~~when the palace is wood~~ ~~.~~     ~~Oak.~~   ~~Carved with baseboards of Asgards’ history.~~   ~~He smiles at you.~~

-If you make mother cry I will kill you.

-Your skin ~~is~~   _not_ blue.

-Thor  ~~should~~   _can_  not be king.  _yet_

He is sitting in the archives, feet tucked under him, gently fingering the pages of the ledger.  It is blue today.  A gift, he thinks, from the thin girl with honey-brown hair that he talks to at feasts.  It’s unclear to him why it was gifted, but the inscription addresses him as “My heart” and reads “You are not that cute”.  There is a crude drawing of a man in a dress that ripples as through the artist had been laughing uncontrollably.  Loki has taken to petting the cover when he sees it, writes what is closest to  _his_  heart.  His mind.  His life.  They take the form of poems, spells, daydreams; they are chaotic on purpose in the unlikely event that they will be found.  They are his warnings and his memories stored in a place where they cannot melt together

Loki goes to bury his face in his hands, but there is a scar along the inside of his wrist that is still angry and red around the edges.  By the time he pulls back his sleeve it is gone.

“Brother!”

The light of the candle in front of him burns shadows into his eyes and he closes them.  Breathes deep, a sigh calculated to taste the tension in the air, to know who it is before turning to greet-

Odin.

He looks over his shoulder at the archives, empty save for the staff, and back again.

His father reaches out and grips his forearm, pulling him up from his seat in one easy motion.

“We had not expected you back,” Odin’s eyes are filled with a not-laugh that is the closest to one Loki has seen in years.  They are black and angry and his voice is knives.  “The coronation is tomorrow, Thor will be king.”

Loki stops breathing until there is again a smile on Odin’s face and an arm clasped around his shoulders.

“Come to dinner, it has been too long since you’ve sat among us.”

At the doors of the archive entrance a small boy with red hair meets them and reaches up to take his hand.  Loki allows it to swing back and forth as the child chatters about his new training sword.

By the time they reach the hall Thor is towering over him.


	2. Chapter 2

There are different places, he knows this.  Knows it like he knows his mother(s) love him.  It is in his bones and thrums in his soul and each breath.  They are solid and complete on their own and yet all seem as one.  He charts them, tries to keep them clear, but it is difficult even as he matures.  Experience makes them only marginally easier to navigate.

He has not always noticed the shifts because they have always been with him.  The fact it took him so long to _see_  is laughable.  He is gifted, brilliant, eccentric, troubled.  He is a liar who has only ever spoken the truth.

His entire life has been a battle with madness. He thinks he’s done rather well.

The evidence is in the people.  In Sif’s hair before he cut it, in the shifting quality of Fandral’s voice as he makes passes at every one they encounter.  It is more noticeable around the nose and eyes of those he is with, it is why he does not like when others turn their backs on him because in order to protect himself he has to  _see_.  It is why Hogun turns his back on him as often as possible.

Hogun knows things, even if he doesn’t know them.

\---

When he stands by Thor before the coronation he laughs, prods, tricks with magic and the servant leaves with a nervous smile, grabbing the platter and cup and backing out as quickly as he can without being rude. The look of horror on his face makes Loki giggle.

He ignores the insult simmering inside him and plays his response off as a mild correction, knowing it will incite his brother to mock. The joke Thor makes of his contribution to the battle hurts, but it redirects the anger as it was meant to.

“You are incapable of sincerity.” Thor tells him.

Loki sighs and turns to him, invests himself in the words. Means them with all parts of him, trying to reach the Thor who lives in the palace of wood walls.

“I have looked forward to this day as long as you have. Brother. My friend. Sometimes I’m envious, but never doubt that I love you.”

He feels a hand on the back of the neck, sees Thor smile _thank you_ , and then watches as his brother’s smile shifts to mockery. He changes tactics.

“Now give us a kiss.”

\---

Roars of the crowds fill the air as Thor enters, arm held high in triumph (entitlement), he smiles at his companions, at his mother, but he does not look at Loki.

Silence comes at the ringing of Gungnir on the metal floor. Odin speaks.

“Thor Odinson. My heir, my first born.” Loki runs his tongue over the inside of his teeth, jaws tight. He watches Thor swear to lies that he does not know are lies, though the ignorance does not make them any more true. Tries to see Thor’s eyes when he swears to cast aside his own ambitions (he wants him to mean it, truly, but he knows his brother will not hold this oath).

It is with a staggering sense of relief when the Allfather stops mid-ceremony and leads Thor down to the vaults. Loki follows. They do not see him.

Thor rages and growls, picks up the shield of one of the deceased and throws it. It nicks a pillar and clatters loudly to the ground. He storms out of the vault when his reign is denied and Loki walks (still invisible) with him. Up the stairs and through the halls, into the receiving room where a feast had been set to celebrate the (failed) occasion.

When Thor upends one of the tables laden with food while servants are trying to clear it, Loki sends a shadow to speak with him (unsure of his own safety, Loki stands quietly by the wall, fingers trailing over the edges of the glass that had rolled in his direction).

“It is unwise to be in my company right now, brother.”

The illusion walks out from behind a pillar and Loki gives a little laugh at himself. “Who said I was wise.”

He waits until Sif and the Warriors Three walk in before moving to join his shadow, letting it fade around him as he speaks.

“If it’s any consolation,” he thinks back to the vault, when a Thor had spoken of waiting for their next move, considering options, “I think you’re right. About the frost giants, about Laufey, about everything.” The words slowly catch up with him and he tenses, suddenly hearing the Thor who wants to battle, trying to hold him back. “But there’s nothing you could do without defying father.” Thor’s eyes harden. “No. No no no no no no no, I know that look-“

“It’s the only way to ensure the safety of our borders.”

“It’s madness.”

“Madness? What sort of madness?” Volstagg calls out (by what was left of the food, naturally).

“We’re going to Jotunheim.”

Thor coaches the warriors into wanting to go and Loki rests his face in his hands, torn between annoyance and pride at Thor playing to each of their vices. Before he knows it they are standing outside the gates with their horses. He grabs a guard, whispers a message for father, and follows.  When they cross the bridge, flickers of light bursting to the strikes of their horses hooves upon it, he pleads with Heimdall.

“Stop us.”

“You are not dressed warmly enough.”

The Bifrost blinds him, grabs at him violently, and then they are in the snow.

He wraps his arms around himself for a moment to ward off a shiver that he doesn’t really feel, straightens his coat, and steps up to his brother’s side.

Hogun… hesitates isn’t quite the right word, but they pass each other their eyes meet and for a moment think as one. “We shouldn’t be here.”

They are surrounded, and taunted, and Loki tries to pull Thor together. He is as successful as he ever is, which is to say that he ultimately fails.

Loki sees towering spires in the distance that were not there before and it distracts him for long enough (which is hardly any time at all) for everything to be ruined.

After the hammer is thrown they are overwhelmed in a flurry of weapons and yells and ice that flies.

Thor is an idiot.

That is one thing that will never change and Loki is unsure why he ever used to take comfort in it.

When the giant grabs his wrist they both grin.  Because Loki knows, of course he does because  _this was his life,_ and when the blue creeps into him he is equal parts horrified and relieved that he finally understands what’s been haunting him.

One time he does not kill the giant.

And one time,  _one_  time, one  _beautifully_  glorious time, his skin burns.

Father shows up too late to do anything of real consequence.

Until he banishes Thor.

While Odin and Thor roar at each other, Loki runs his hand over the edge of his shattered gauntlet. A chip breaks off.

“You are unworthy of your title. You are unworthy of the loved ones you have betrayed.” Loki flinches as though the Allfather is speaking to him.

Words are scratching the back of his throat (Iturnedblueitwasbluewhywhathappeneddaddyplease) and he watches Thor who is not the one that smiles turn to him and then he is so close and Mjölnir red mist in the air tastes like copper father roars-

Thor is across the room and Loki is not sure what happened, but he thinks he died.

\---

Before Sliepnir is led outside of the gatehouse, he turns to Loki and noses the space between his shoulder and neck.  The harness is a dead kind of cold against his skin, but Loki reaches up and clings to his not-son for as long as they will let him.

After father is gone, Loki turns to Heimdall. He thinks he throws a piece of his gauntlet at him, charred black from cold and for a moment can still see the blue there (but Heimdall doesn’t react, so he isn’t sure if it really happened)

“Why didn’t you stop us?”

“It is for the best,” The gatekeeper tells him. “You will see.”

He thinks of the blue, the chill of it still shimmering in his veins. It makes more sense now, of course. The blue had always been with him in glimpses, but he pretended not to see it. He goes to the vault. Father follows him and calls out his name as he is praying for the casket to burn him.

He cries he begs he screams he tries to listen.  Every time his father falls.

There are guards running and empty gulps for air and spittles of blood at the mouth and he’s not sure when he leaves the vault, but he is sitting at his father’s bed side across from his mother desperately wishing for father to open his eyes or for her to come around and hold him and he wants to touch her but can’t because there’s blood on him that she can’t see when she’s looking and hate in her eyes when she’s not.

He sits in silence until he is handed Gungnir, and then his carefully constructed world starts to fall apart.

When the warriors come to speak to the Allfather, they find him instead (Loki greets them with “my friends” he wants to mean it).

It is the red that stains his hands, not the warriors’ petty taunts, that finally drive him to Midgard.

He can’t tell if the red is worse than the memories of the blue.

Father is dead (he thinks, he knows, that is true in at least one place and every time he looks at his hands and the blood he thinks that is where he still is even if the shifting of the land proves it’s a lie. Loki is good with lies and above all lying to himself, else he would not have survived).

He has to tell Thor.

\---

When he returns, the dried red he can still see on his skins itches, but it is not that color he is afraid of.

The blue is leeching into him.  He can see the hue of it in his skin all the time now.  A slow seeping, the way a drop of wine infects a glass of water it has been poured into.  It creeps, claws its way in, ripping into him.  Skin peeling away and melting into charcoal, blistered black ashes leaking a sickly yellow pus, and he prays to- his mother?  Father?- he prays, that no one else around him can see it too.  The scratches it leaves itch in a way that only nails on skin can sooth and when he is alone, he rips up the fabric of his coat sleeve and scrapes down until the skin is raw and red and when he looks at it he can only see the blue creeping in through his veins.

Panic.

Out OUT he needs it out he NEEDS it out why is he still BLUE

He grabs the knife from his desk and slashes his wrist.  It always bleeds red, except for the time it doesn’t.

\---

_I will hunt the monsters down and slay them._

_I am ready._

_Ready._

_I will slay them._

He wakes up.  The fog of sleep eases quickly, and he smiles.   
 _Yes._

_\---_

The Warriors Three always go to Thor.  There is one time Fandral looks at him in hurt confusion and almost asks, another when Volstagg tells him with fondness that his king looks overburdened and areyoualrightisthereanythingIcando, and both of these times Loki thinks  _maybe_  and  _please_ , but they still leave.

There are times that Sif does not go down with them, but instead stands by his side and reaches to help him when he is weak and kneeling under the pressure of the crown he does/has/will never want, unless he is lying prone on the steps of the dais with her fingers digging into his neck

Her smile is lovely.

Their betrayal burns, even though it is expected.  He knows everything he does will be a wrong choice.  If he was to be taken seriously as a king, their betrayal demanded a response.  Any response would cause them to label him a traitor.  He wants his mother (still his mother?)

His mother’s weaving room is full of surfaces that are ivory and polished wood.  It had occurred to him once that it is the only place he can think of that never shifted, that every time he enters she is sitting on her bench, weaving gracefully.  He walks in expecting her to be there and, when she is not, does not understand why he is confused because she has been sitting with his (not) father for days.  His head aches, a splitting throb that makes him sit in the corner of the empty room and rest his forehead on his knees.  He runs his hand through his hair and pretends it’s hers.

He does not go to his father’s bedside. He goes to the vault.

“Ensure my brother does not return. Destroy everything.”

He wants them to burn too.

When Thor begs his forgiveness, his mercy, Loki has the destroyer hit him because it is the only way to bring Thor back and Loki needs him to stop this. He is out of control. When he loses connection with the destroyer he thinks “Oh. Good.” Then he opens the gate to Laufey.

And kills himher.

Once he steps onto the bridge it does not change, even if there is shifting as he approaches.

Heimdall tries to speak to him of reassurance, logic, realities and so Loki kills him, clings to him, freezes him solid because it is so much easier when he lets the madness take him.

_When I am king, I’ll hunt the monsters down and slay them all._

Helpless laughter.  He steps out onto the roar of the bridge.

There is burning and white agony, then nothing until he opens his eyes.  He is still standing on the edge and cries because it didn’t work.

Then Thor comes.

Loki shrouds the key in ice.

“I am a worthy son.” He shouts. “When he wakes, I will have saved his life. I will have destroyed that race of monsters and I will be true heir to the throne.”

“You can’t kill an entire race.”

“Why not? What is this new found love of frost giants.”

Too far. Attack me. Do it. DO IT. He speaks of the woman. Idle, violent threats. They trigger his brother to action. He makes dozens of himself, taunting, until he is blasted away, pinned down on the bridge with a force crushing his chest. Watches helpless as the bridge is destroyed underneath them and instead they are sitting together under the trees in the garden like they did when they were young.  Thor snores the times he is there.

If Loki watches carefully the fields will shift from gold to green to flames to flowers without ever changing.

Huginn and Muninn look down on him from their perch in the branches.

If he could reach them he would.  He would reach them and grab them and squeeze them until the little pops sounded and then twist them apart into so many pieces that he could always have one nearby no matter where he went and lick the blood off his fingers and maybe give some of Huginn to Thor if he was the one who still smiled at him.

Thought caws at him and takes flight, leaving only Memory sitting in silence above his head.

“I hate you.”

\---

His earliest memories (besides the bigdarkalone that lasted until hollowness devoured him and then nothing) were of his mother’s fingers when she lifted lines of silken thread as he sat on her lap.

Empty bright air filled the room; It shimmered and he watches the sparks flit around like dust before she called his name gently and kissed his hair.  The hands in front of him were warmsofthome big enough to envelop his when he reached out.  They took his fingers and lay them gently on the delicate weaving, running down the length of it he could reach while still clutching at her dress.

The threads are smooth under his fingers, tucked together neatly and so close it’s like they are a single piece.  He remembers asking who she is weaving and if it is him.  Mother pets his hair and lies.  As she starts to sing he closes his eyes and wonders why his life looks like the basket of tangled scraps she keeps under her stool.

\---

For a second he can see the fire and the hate and it’s not Gungnir he’s clinging to but the shattered edge of the bridge with the heel of Thor’s boot grinding into his bones, slick with blood.

He lets go and the last thing he knows before the void is a distracted wondering of why he hears his brotherfriendnephew screaming his name as he falls.


End file.
